Bully: it's really bad.

Yeah they removed the ability for OPs to lock their threads about 2 months ago.

I figure that the people who are complaining that 1 in 3 is still not enough, are 'pink' and would never dream of tanking or soloing anything (other than farming). Unfortunately now that anyone with a half decent LS can get 5/5 +2, there are idiots running around in the best gear now too, not just in pink. This makes them harder to spot.

I agree Babeke.

I know i happen to have far better gear than probably half the THF's posting here, Up to and including Mandau shortly, I've actually heard of Macros and use them vastly, and i happen to think this adjustment is absolutely brilliant, You know why?

Just like Nynja more or less said, Sure, Its only 1 in 3, But what was it before? Oh right, 0 in 3. My bad. I can see how this is such a terrible improvement. Maybe we should go back to 0 in 3, that'd work. [sarcasm]Lets give Bully its TH upgrade back since this SA thing is soooo terrible[/sarcasm]

What else can they realistically ask for? Even if its 1/3 (At best 2/3) its still 100/200% Better than what we could do before,and while it will not fix THF overnight/alone, Its a magnificent boost and one of the best Update's to DD THF has gotten since Assassin (and arguably, Feint).

Again, It won't fix THF overnight, But this is a Fix we've been asking for, in fact "A JA or JT That allows you to SA from any direction" has been asked for for a very long time here, Its in my Master Compilation thread even, and now it can be checked off.

Frankly, half of the people asking for that JA Expected SA to not get any DEX boost as a nerf to it, we just got a completely unimpeded Frontal SA 1/3 or 2/3rds of the time depending on the situation.

this ability and realize it went from completely shit to amazingly useful practically overnight, and we can stop asking for shit for it now. Now we play the waiting game for level 99.

They've given us our Inch in the DD department, Ask for the mile at level 99 and beyond. Just because we hit 99 doesn't mean job adjustments will stop coming (We got a lot at level 75)

I never understood the problem with THF if u were good at the job, Thief is one of the few DD's i see doing more that 2k on VWNMS someone explain to me please.

Big number syndrome and/or other DD's are terrible.

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Originally Posted by Corvin

I never understood the problem with THF if u were good at the job, Thief is one of the few DD's i see doing more that 2k on VWNMS someone explain to me please.

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THF has a fundamental lack of attack/accuracy for HNM, so we start weaker to begin with.

It's mostly that we have to rely on Sneak and Trick Attack to see those kind of decent numbers from WS. All of our HNM WS are garbage unstacked.

SA/TA present a certain set of restrictions:

The recast timers are a pretty big bottleneck for damage, especially when you start adding haste into the picture.

Due to the positional requirements/running around and dynamic battles (more of an issue in casual play, big group events, exp than HNM etc) even the best of us will not be able to land them or make use of them 100% of the time as timer's allow.

This is less of a positional issue for larger VWNM which are actually "tanked" so it is easier to move around. But Treasure Hunter is pretty useless there, and it's all about staggers. So balls to the wall damage is not really the point any more.

The WS disadvatange is that most other DD's do not have timers to wait on or positional requirements to fulfil in order for their WS to not suck. Then things like low native ACC/ATT, no subtle blow etc.

But THF was never meant to be on that level. A good THF is something to behold. There aren't many, so when you see one do something you haven't seen other THFs do...its like "What are these guys TALKING about? THF is AMAZING."

But this is really just a product of an amazing player...not that THF is an amazing DD job. That amazing player would do crazy amazing damage on a better DD job. But no one plays THF JUST because they wanted to be a DD. There's more draw to it than that.

The problem, I find, is that the gap right now is very large. As easy as it is for every DD to cap gear haste and stack more from other sources, the damage boost from SA and TA is far too low to stay competetive (if they even connect or it is possible to make use of them).

Like it or not THF IS a DD, part of its utility is tied to the damage it does. If our damage is too lacking, so is our utility....

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Specializing in covert actions, Thieves (THF) aim for the perfect opportunity to attack the enemy

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One of the key issues is right here. The last time THF learned a "perfect opportunity to attack" type ability was level 30. These abilites were designed around group dynamics that no longer exist.

People seem to forget that THF used to be an AMAZING DD in exp parties (one of the best, actually). Closing a monsterous SATA VB distortion skillchain for mages to magic burst was one of the best things around.

The damage payoff for making SATA lines and catering to THF's positional playstyle was quite large.

Fast forward to present day: No one makes skill chains on purpose and even our weaponskills combined with sneak attack and trick attack don't measure up to other DD's regular WS's.

The damage payoff is no longer worth catering to THF's positional playstyle of DD....so groups don't do it anymore.

And yet, SE still won't let go of this "THF MUST be useless without a group" mentality.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Stop underselling this as "only pinks like it" because its ignorant,

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Uh, Babekeke said that only pinks were complaining about it, pretty much the complete opposite. Read it again:

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Originally Posted by Babekeke

I figure that the people who are complaining that 1 in 3 is still not enough, are 'pink' and would never dream of tanking or soloing anything (other than farming). Unfortunately now that anyone with a half decent LS can get 5/5 +2, there are idiots running around in the best gear now too, not just in pink. This makes them harder to spot.

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Holy hell, how did I miss this thread? Yay us! I'm not usually one to get involved with the white knight side of these things, but holy crap does even a small buff to THF feel good. And to think there's people who think 5% DA isn't good enough!

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

THF merit stuff

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Personally, I would be happy if they reworked Hide so that it worked on NM/HNM quality mobs, and then had recast- merits for it at 99. It would give THF another tool to SA in a group setting, possibly combined with TA. Better than that, it would actually allow THF to dump aggro in a group setting, making Collaborator much less useless than it currently is. Something simple but effective. Say, 5 merits to get it down to 2:30. It's more synergistic with how SE seems to want THF to function.

I'm sure there's something obvious I'm missing some obvious function in my sleep deprived state, but considering what Bully just became I don't think doing what I stated above is out of the question.

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Originally Posted by noodles355

Uh, Babekeke said that only pinks were complaining about it, pretty much the complete opposite. Read it again:

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Lies!

Lies and Slander.

Edited to reflect.

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Originally Posted by Karbuncle

Lies!

Lies and Slander.

Edited to reflect.

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I was just replying to your top thread when I noticed that you must have edited it since I went to the page... no longer telling me to hold my tongue ;p

For the record, you weren't on the list of people I was referring to :D

Played with Bully 3.0 on the test server. It works as promised. No hidden "does not stack with WS" or "dex bonus is halved" clauses. The effect is still a mob debuff so I'm gonna assume for now that anyone will be able to SA from anywhere as long as the effect is up. The only downside is that in at least 10 uses of the JA solo I did not get a single intimidate on EP mobs. I'm not gonna complain though. The intimidate is now the sideshow and SA from anywhere is the main attraction.

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Originally Posted by Insaniac

The intimidate is now the sideshow and SA from anywhere is the main attraction.

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Yeah...this doesn't make sense for me. A JA should be used for its main benefit, something described on its description. I think this intimidation stuff should be trashed. We won't use the ja for that reason. Then they could change the description to "allows sneak attack from any side" or something. Maybe we could get a longer duration with that, since there is no other silly bonus on its path.

The changes made to Bully allowing you to Sneak Attack when not behind a monster have been implemented on the Test Server. Head on over there and try it out :)

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Originally Posted by Camate

The changes made to Bully allowing you to Sneak Attack when not behind a monster have been implemented on the Test Server. Head on over there and try it out :)

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:) 12345678

Has anyone tried a SA from /thf with a bully debuff on the mob, or a secondary thf's SA, if it works from any direction?

I've been wondering, has anyone tested the intimidate aspect of Bully paired with a job that has a killer trait? I was hoping to try it before the update but unfortunately I was too late. I was wondering if bully would stack with a natural killer effect and cause intimidate to proc more often for that person. Maybe the chance of bully intimidate would add with the chance of natural intimidate.
EX; (all fake numbers) bird killer 25% + bully 20% (full alliance! lol) = 45% chance for that person to proc, 20% chance for everyone else.

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Originally Posted by Insaniac

[...] The only downside is that in at least 10 uses of the JA solo I did not get a single intimidate on EP mobs. [...]

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Or maybe now that the effect has been weakened, it could multiply the two.
EX; (more fake numbers) bird killer 25% x bully 2% (full alliance! lol) = 50% chance for that person to proc, 2% chance for everyone else.

If it does stack, it could be quite powerful, albeit in very limited situations. Now that the main point of the ability is for SA (I squealed in joy), and intimidate has inevitably been nerfed to oblivion (this is not a complaint), the entire intimidate portion of the skill may only be noticeable (and even then may still be hardly noticeable) while in a situation where someone has a killer trait and is fighting a monster it relates to.

Of course, the system is more than likely tooled so that the ability/trait with the higher killer effect is the only one that takes effect, "to prevent it from being overpowered".
EX; (more fake numbers) bird killer 25% / bully 5% = 25% for the person with bird killer, 5% for anyone else.

All in all, I do love the new direction for bully, but something in me tells me this was the original direction all along. Even the roadmap and hints before the release of the ability were pointing towards "something to compliment SA and TA" and "causes intimidate" doesn't really fit in there. Something tells me this is what we would have received anyways, and the bully in it's original form was meant to cause outrage and make it seem like we're actually being listened to. But that's just the conspiracy theorist in me. Camate is still awesome either way. ;)

Anyways, one ability fixed (victory!). Now all they have to do is fix/delete mug, steal/aurasteal, despoil, and hide and extend accomp/collab's effective distance (again). [sarcasm]See you all in another 10 years.[/sarcasm]

Edit: I somehow started calling Bully, bird killer.

Can we change the name of the topic to "Bully: it's really good"?

No, then it would be nerfed. :P

Let us use sneak attack from any angle anyways. Ive lost so much dmg over the years due to the mob turning or someone deciding that they want to run circles around the monster for no apparent reason.

finally a step in the right direction... still at best this will only net ya 2 additional multi directional sneak attacks, (+ hide if its your first action vs the nm but meh)

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Originally Posted by Fuidama

No, then it would be nerfed. :P

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uh hmm good point.

Bully still sucks, yep >.>

I did a quick baseline test of the new bully on flamingos in sky. First off, Yokodama lives again! So much fun... Secondly, as EP monsters, I used bully 10 times. Here are the intimidation results.
2,2,2,3,0,2,1,1,2,2
In all, that averages to about 1.7 times the target is intimidated for every 30 seconds that bully is active while solo on an EP mob. In all honesty, I think this is still very close to the numbers I was getting with the original bully; I was intimidating the monster 2-3 times each bully before. So, if the intimidate aspect of bully was nerfed so little, there may be little we can expect out of it to begin with. IE if the rate wasn't changed much, then what we can do with it probably has.
You do the math for the % of the 30 seconds and the % for the 3 minutes for the ability. Again, this is a small sample, and may be closer to 1.5 or 2 in reality.

As Insaniac said he did not even see one proc for his 10 uses on an EP monster, the proc may be based on the type/family of monster. If there is not a killer trait for a job that relates to a certain monster, maybe the monster can't be intimidated at all? This may be very likely with NMs if so. Maybe it is determined by zone?
Insaniac, what did you fight for your test?

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Originally Posted by Nynja

Has anyone tried a SA from /thf with a bully debuff on the mob, or a secondary thf's SA, if it works from any direction?

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Thanks to a helpful JP THF this evening, I switched over to WAR/THF and tried it out. It does not appear that /THF's SA will work with Bully. This is quite unfortunate as it could have opened quite a few options for party tactics and created a greater reward for any /THF that coordinated with a main THF.

And unfortunately, at the time I did not think to try "sharing" SA and bully with us both as main THF.

Anyways, I still have not had a proper chance to test intimidate with a job with killer effects (I only killed two birds with BST and THF before my JP friend had to go for dinner, but proc rate didn't seem to change) but I plan to some time in the morning. Until then, could anyone recommend a method on establishing a baseline for Bird Killer? I've figured two would be to 1) Since bully was used to claim, and therefore used for the 1st 30 seconds of each fight, use a stopwatch and time the first 30 seconds of 10 fights with BST and see how many times the monster is intimidated. The end result would be under the same time frame and easily comparable once used together 2) perform 10 fights with only melee hits and obtain the average amount of times each target was intimidated for the entire fight. Using the same process when combined with bully, if bully makes a difference it will show in the average.

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Originally Posted by Fuidama

[..Bully could be better, etc, etc]

Anyways, I still have not had a proper chance to test intimidate with a job with killer effects (I only killed two birds with BST and THF before my JP friend had to go for dinner, but proc rate didn't seem to change) but I plan to some time in the morning. Until then, could anyone recommend a method on establishing a baseline for Bird Killer? I've figured two would be to 1) Since bully was used to claim, and therefore used for the 1st 30 seconds of each fight, use a stopwatch and time the first 30 seconds of 10 fights with BST and see how many times the monster is intimidated. The end result would be under the same time frame and easily comparable once used together 2) perform 10 fights with only melee hits and obtain the average amount of times each target was intimidated for the entire fight. Using the same process when combined with bully, if bully makes a difference it will show in the average.

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There's a whole dedicated forum for FFXI math, have a read here:
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/103...=1#post4641701
According to Byrthnoth, lv1 Killer traits are 8% base intimidation rate, lv2 traits are 10%.

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Originally Posted by Fuidama

Insaniac, what did you fight for your test?

Thanks to a helpful JP THF this evening, I switched over to WAR/THF and tried it out. It does not appear that /THF's SA will work with Bully. This is quite unfortunate as it could have opened quite a few options for party tactics and created a greater reward for any /THF that coordinated with a main THF.

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I was fighting various junk around the volbow OP so raptors lizards bunnys goblins and crabs.

That's really unfortunate about it not affecting /THF.

/sigh I was really hoping that /thf could make a comeback as a viable sub again ; ;

Now can another Thf main benefit from the bully effect for Sneak Attack?

It's really a shame they didn't allow others to SA as well. That would have been a great addition to thf for party usefulness.

Just did a quick test this morning, Myself and my friend Maori have confirmed that two main THF can indeed SA off of each others bully. Looks like limits on SA as /thf just keep stacking up. ;)

Anyways, it's the weekend so I'm off to see friends. More testing to come at a later time.

Edit:
Thank you for the link Zirael

6 Thf party with fulltime bully ftw.

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Originally Posted by noodles355

6 Thf party with fulltime bully ftw.

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This is all the more reason that /THF should be allowed to SA with Bully, but perhaps there was a balance reason for this SE didn't mention.

Still, being able to use another THF main's bully is amazing - now you are encouraged to have more then one Thief in a party.

lol thats actually kinda good to hear that bully can affect other then the main user... and its a shame its not extended to /thf for so many reasons especially when you are talking about a hate control specialist, having 2-3 thfs available to throw bully so the heavy dd's can slam it down and keep the hate on the tank would do wonders for their whole hate control vision if you ask me.

Well it sucks that /thf wont work...but whatever, good enough as is. Lets refrain from being drk's and emoing cuz our new toy is "WAAAAH IT SUCKSSSSSSSSSSS" because people lack the ability to use it properly.

To those asking for bully on /THF: Really. Enough is enough. DDs are already good enough with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, that giving them bully just makes them too overpowered so no. It's time to let the THF shine again like they used to.

It's about THF bringing more to the table in party play. It wouldn't make any DD other than SAM/THF any more powerful because of the ability to SA and overwhelm at the same time. It would just let them SATA more reliably. Hardly anyone subs THF anymore anyway.

Besides, what's wrong with making alternative sub jobs more viable?

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Originally Posted by Suirieko

To those asking for bully on /THF: Really. Enough is enough. DDs are already good enough with Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, that giving them bully just makes them too overpowered so no. It's time to let the THF shine again like they used to.

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Last I checked, Bully is still THF main only (I'm referring to the ability, not the effect). Basically, if it worked on /THF, it would still be the THF dealing all that extra damage by buffing the party, not just the party members.

Something people forget in their quest for bigger numbers is that the biggest damage dealing class in the game is a clear toss up between Bard, White Mage, and Red Mage - the two most important things for damage in this game are Haste, and surviving, probably in that order. Sure, in rare circumstances you might be able to zerg a fight without cures or Haste but ultimately, all the damage is being dealt by the people who make it happen.

Although I think it would be more interesting to allow Bully work for /THF, perhaps there was a balance reason for this SE didn't mention. Perhaps it would make Thief main too powerful or something like that, I really don't know. It is really cool it works on other THF mains in your party however, for reasons mentioned earlier, even if it doesn't work on /THFs.

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Originally Posted by DebbieGibson

They probably aren't responding to that because TH does work and there is no bug or issue with it at all.

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Good time to say I told you so?